Wikipedia:Featured article review/Right whale/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 18:50, 16 August 2012 [1].

Right whale

Review commentary

Featured article candidates/Right whale

Notified: Pcb21, WP:MAMMALS, WP:ARCTIC

I am nominating this featured article for review because... I don't believe it is featured quality. I left concerns at Talk:Right whale#FA concerns over six months ago, and little to no work has been done on the article. As to the criteria, 1(c) and 2(c) are failed. There are also entire paragraphs that go without a reference. Albacore (talk) 01:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My observations:

The sections are short and blunt, not going into the detail I'd expect of a FA. More for description, anatomy, etc.
Life History is also short and choppy. The second half of it is completely unsourced
Ecology is also in choppy sections. Predation is only one line long.
Range and habitat is unsourced.
Southern — southern what? This ection also lacks sources.
Whale Watching is also unsourced.
Fishing Gear is unsourced.
NOAA speed limit seems like it should be a table, not a bullet list.
Many sources are bare URLs or not formatted into citation templates.
What makes Enchanted Learning a reliable source?
The content about the explanation for the name (paragraph beginning "A popular explanation…") — that should be in the article itself, not the intro. Intros are supposed to summarize an article, not present facts present nowhere else.
I corrected the spelling of Norra Vånga.

Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:49, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Concerns in the review section focused on referencing, comprehensiveness, prose and MOS compliance. Dana boomer (talk) 12:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist per all my observations. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. Unsourced material, choppy one- and two-sentence paragraphs, material presented in list form that should be in paragraphs, incomplete citations, and unreliable sources, to name a few problems. The Ecology section in particular is a giant mess. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delist article as it stands. Needs alot of referencing. I am sure there are several sections which could be comprehensively referenced and enlarged. Prose needs work in places too. I'd love to get stuck into it but am really busy currently. I think the effort needed is too substantial to warrant an extended time at FARC, unless something major happens in the next week or so. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:43, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Leaning towards Delist, as I agree that this article has eroded substantially:

The lead section has done an incredible job of capturing and expanding upon the majority of the least important points in the article.
I'm one of those few people that find taxonomy fascinating, but this article has developed a frustrating and confusing split personality over the debate on whether to include or exclude the Bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), formerly known as the Greenland right whale, in the "right whale club". This article is about the Eubalaena genus. Period. To wit:

The page for the genus Eubalaena is a redirect to right whale, the page in question.
The genus Balaena has its own page, as does the species bowhead whale.
The article includes statements like, "Genetic evidence appears to have settled a long-standing question^{[citation needed]} about whether to include the largest, the Arctic-dwelling bowhead whale, with the rest. All four are included in the taxonomic family Balaenidae, and all four are generally referred to as right whales^{[citation needed]}." (citation needed emphasis added).
A little further down, it says, A future review will likely place all four species in one genus.^{[citation needed]}^{[RW Note 1]} Little genetic evidence supports the historic two-genera view.^{[citation needed]} (citation needed emphasis added).
It turns out that the source that was provided for the above reference is outdated, and the current version of that same resource says the opposite:

"Within the suborder, 14 species are now generally recognized. Although Rice believed that all right whales belong with the bowhead in the genus Balaena, recent genetic analysis have recognized three separate right whale species, in the genus Eubalaena: in the North Atlantic (E. glacialis); in the North Atlantic (E. japonica); and in the Southern Hemisphere (E. australis)."^{[RW Note 2]}

and,

"The study by Churchill (2007) now has provided the evidence to conclude that the three living right whale species do comprise a phylogenetic lineage distinct from the bowhead and are rightly classified into a separate genus." (emphasis added)^{[RW Note 3]}

At present, three major global authorities (IWC, CMS and IUCN) still accept the Southern, North Atlantic, and North Pacific as the three species of right whales, also referred to collectively as the "black" right whales, and they all continue to keep the bowhead in its own genus. The IUCN goes a step further, saying, "The taxonomy is not in doubt" on their bowhead whale assessment page.

However, I'd prefer to Keep...I know I'm entering this fray in the 11th hour, but I'd like to attempt to rescue the page over the next few days. I don't think it's insurmountable, but unless anyone objects, I intend to be bold and merciless with cuts and expansion. There is some good, referenced material in the three right whale articles that can be brought over to this page, and I have a wealth of information to flesh out those one-sentence, unreferenced sections. I will post the above on the talk page of Right whale as well.
If, on the other hand, the decision to delist has already been made, then I will take a more leisurely approach... Thoughts?

RW Notes

^ Kenney, Robert D. (2002). "North Atlantic, North Pacific and Southern Right Whales". In William F. Perrin; Bernd Wursig; J. G. M. Thewissen (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. pp. 806–813. ISBN 0-12-551340-2.
^ Bannister, John L. (24 November 2008). "Baleen Whales (Mysticetes)". In Perrin, W. F.; Wursig, B.; Thewissen, J. G. M. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
^ Kenney, Robert D. (2008). "Box 1: Taxonomic Rules, J.E. Grey, and Right Whale Names". In Perrin, W. F.; Wursig, B.; Thewissen, J. G. M. (eds.). Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis, E. japonica, and E. australis). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. p. 963. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 20 May 2012.

Groll†ech (talk) 19:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't even think to check the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, at http://www.itis.gov.

This taxonometric database is the result of a partnership of federal agencies formed to satisfy their mutual needs for scientifically credible taxonomic information. They too concur, so I will make the changes.

Groll†ech (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This FAR has been dormant almost a month. Has anything significant changed? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:38, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've put a great deal of work into an updated article on which I was working offline, and I was getting close to posting it when I had a computer crash a couple weeks ago... you'll notice my contributions fell off a cliff at that time. I'm still a day or two away from from getting the results of the data recovery effort. I'd completely understand if you need to close out the FAR, in which case we'll work to bring it back up through FAC. As I've never done either before, I assume the level of difficulty is the same for passing an FAR as it is to pass an FAC? Grollτech (talk) 03:37, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no pressing need to close the FAR -I will have a look too in the next few days. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:07, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

sigh - needs alot of work. Grolltech, if you have the energy to prioritise and really get stuck into this, I'll help, but it'd be a tall order. If you don't have the time or inclination, it is no big deal to let it slide and lose its shiny star now. It can easily be worked on later. The main thing required is enthusiasm - I can help crossing all the 't's and dotting the 'i's - as well as fetching references, copyediting etc....Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the work is that daunting, wouldn't it be better just to let it be delisted instead of running yourselves ragged trying to keep it FA-class? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Is there still time? I might be able to find the needed cites and fix the lede within one or two days. LittleJerry (talk) 18:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]

~~I added the needed citations and did some paragraph merging. All that's needed is the lede expansion. LittleJerry (talk) 23:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]

Lede expansion now done. I think all the concerns have been addressed. LittleJerry (talk) 22:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With the new improvements, I say Keep. LittleJerry (talk) 16:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I still see a few unsourced statements. Might want to go over it a little more and make sure everything's sourced. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 23:43, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, my concerns have been addressed. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 09:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think LittleJerry has steered it into Keep territory. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

[EOMM-1] Kenney, Robert D. (2002). "North Atlantic, North Pacific and Southern Right Whales". In William F. Perrin; Bernd Wursig; J. G. M. Thewissen (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. pp. 806–813. ISBN 0-12-551340-2.

[PerrinWursig2008b-2] Bannister, John L. (24 November 2008). "Baleen Whales (Mysticetes)". In Perrin, W. F.; Wursig, B.; Thewissen, J. G. M. (eds.). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 20 May 2012.

[PerrinWursig2008-3] Kenney, Robert D. (2008). "Box 1: Taxonomic Rules, J.E. Grey, and Right Whale Names". In Perrin, W. F.; Wursig, B.; Thewissen, J. G. M. (eds.). Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis, E. japonica, and E. australis). Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. Academic Press. p. 963. ISBN 978-0-12-373553-9. Retrieved 20 May 2012.

[RW Note 1]

[RW Note 2]

[RW Note 3]